Your Friendly Neighborhood Music Critic

Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap

William Maxwell, a.k.a., Fetty Wap, whatever that name is or means, pretty much became famous immediately. He didn’t even get to put out his mixtape before his debut studio record because his two singles, “Trap Queen” and “My Way” became so popular so fast, that he didn’t need to release a free mixtape; he could go straight for the record sales.

He started getting into music just 2 years ago, a year later releasing “Trap Queen,” and by November 2014, saw it become a platinum single with over 2.4 million digital downloads. Whether you like him or not, “Trap Queen,” the song that was the late summer #1, with lyrics like, “I be in the kitchen cooking pies with my baby,” is undeniably catchy.

Do I like Fetty Wap? I haven’t decided yet. Fetty Wap is very original sounding, which is part of the draw, and the originality of the vocals is appealing no matter how good the song may be. People are always drawn to pay more attention to originality.

The thing with Fetty Wap, and the ridiculousness of the lyrics in “Trap Queen,” opening up with, “I’m like, hey wassup, hello,” is that he has a weird combination of traits, to me at least, like Future and R. Kelly. Where Future’s rap-singing career is a bit more serious, R. Kelly’s ridiculousness and obsession with the kitchen comes in and kind of fills out the second half of Fetty Wap. Thus begins my confusion to whether or not I like Fetty Wap, since I’m not a big fan of Future’s music, and I am a huge fan of R. Kelly, another artist whose fandom of mine is confusing, though remains true nonetheless. Not that I want to treat Fetty as Future or R. Kelly, since he is his own persona, but in how I regard Fetty Wap as an artist, he seems to me like the epitome of a rap-singing-clown-mascot, and it’s hard to take him seriously.

Deep down I really like “Trap Queen.” In context of the album, putting aside the inclusion of Monty, his apparent sidekick on about 9 of the 20 tracks, I can’t listen to the album, more than maybe 6-tracks in a row actually, without getting annoyed. Where the voice is original, it’s also a bit obnoxious. It doesn’t always work, like how it clicks on “Trap Queen,” even if most of the tracks sound like “not-as-good Trap Queen.” Right now, with his crazy fast rise to fame, all I can say is that while Fetty Wap, the album, might be a bit too much for me, I think Fetty Wap, the artist, might have more to prove, and I can’t deny that “Trap Queen” is catchy as hell.